HANDMADE WEDDING VS WEDDING PLANNER
All brides and grooms have probably come to the same impasse at some point: Do I hire a wedding planner or do I get crafty and organise my own handmade wedding?
Hiring a wedding planner means you can sit back and relax and let a professional do all the hard work for you, but at what cost? Are you prepared to spend a few hundred if not thousands of pounds to let somebody else do something you can do yourself with a bit of time on your hands? Surely you would rather save that bit of money to put towards your honeymoon, wouldn’t you?
Well, here is how! Nowadays one can create the most extraordinary thing with just 3 things:
- A bit of spare time,
- A lot of cool ideas,
- And our good old friend: Internet!
Have you got all those? Perfect!
First things first, you need to set your budget and stick to it. Once you have set that magic number, make sure you don’t go over it!
You can now move on to the kind of wedding you want to have. What is your style? Your wedding has to be as unique as you but before you start thinking of impressing your guests, make sure YOU are happy with it. After all, it’s your big day!
Have you figured out what style you are going for yet? Then let’s start planning! Unless you have experience planning weddings (we hope this is your first and your last!) you will need some inspiration, in fact, a lot of it, and the best way to get ideas is by fishing for them online. One of the most popular and our all-time favourite Wedding Blogs is Rock My Wedding. At Rock My Wedding you will find tonnes of inspiring ideas and images of real weddings that will surely help you build your own.
After surfing the net and collecting some good ideas and once you have a clear picture in your head of what your ideal wedding is it’s time to get a pen and paper out and start sourcing wedding businesses that can help you with your journey. This will be the bit that you will enjoy the most as there are a vast amount of wedding companies out there used to working alongside bridezillas like yourself!
Today we will show you how easy creating your own wedding can be. We will share with you a wedding we fell in love with straight away. The Bride? Ariana Gaitรกn, from Barcelona, Spain, a fantastic DIY bride and close friend of ours. We are lucky to be allowed to share her wedding pictures and some fantastic tips to create a bohemian chic inspired wedding. She went with this fresh, juvenile and rustic style that represented both her and her fiancรฉ Dani. A quiet and romantic day that shone for its simplicity and for having around only the closest family and friends: this was a wedding from the heart.
And as this is what defines Ariana the most, she crafted every little detail from her very own wedding invitations to her food and make up.
Meet Ariana! She wanted to say the ‘I Do’s’ surrounded by her closest family and friends. Nothing too glamorous or extravagant.
Let’s go through some tips to take into account if you, like Ariana, are a DIY Bride and can’t wait to create your own wedding:
1. INVITATIONS:
Invitations are the presentation to your wedding so make sure you get those right! They will tell your guests what kind of wedding you are going to be hosting. Your best bet is to make your invitations match your wedding theme. There are many places to get inspiration to craft your own. We have an eye on Paperbliss. They have great tutorials and guides you can download to craft your own rustic wedding invitations from scratch!
The guys at Wedding Chicks have free printable invitations and matching stationary! You can select any of their designs and put your wording in online and download the invitation to print yourself. Bridezillas of the world, thank these guys for reducing your workload and getting your invitations done for next to nothing.
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2. PHOTOGRAPHER:
Get your friends and family to take pictures on the day and share them on social media channels like Instagram. Place a few instagram signs with your chosen hashtag and get all your friends and family to upload their pictures from your wedding on to instagram. Work them filters and create some stunning memories!
3. VENUE DECORATION:
Hunt for real weddings to source the inspiration you need to turn your handmade wedding into a bohemian rustic dream. A few essentials to create that desired effect are:
- Wooden signs
- Hessian table runners
- Old vintage boxes
- Candles
- Lanterns
- Dry flowers
- Bunting
- Craft Card Table Numbers
We will reveal a magical place, an online shop you can navigate day and night and never get bored of looking… Head straight to the rustic world of Wedding Ideas Magazine Shop. You will find all you need for a rustic dream wedding.
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Collect a few glass jars (no matter what size!), put a few flowers and leaves in it and tie it to your venue chairs with a bit of natural twine.
4. FOOD:
Break from convention and do it yourself! Design a menu that you love and keep it simple and stylish. Avoid trying to innovate with new recipes that you have not done before, the last thing you need is adding stress on your wedding day.
Consider food that can be cooked in bulk the day before like pasta, salad, rice or chicken. If you prefer to serve on the day food, prepare a good bunch of sandwiches and savory snacks and finish with some deliciously scrumptious chocolate dipped strawberries.
Tip: Don’t forget to make some veggie sandwiches and snacks for your guests and make sure you label them with cards on cocktail sticks. Not feeling it? Let us share something with you: The number of vegans only in Britain has raised by 360% in the last 10 years. Don’t take your guests diets for granted and include an RSVP option on your invites that reads ‘Any specific dietary requirements or allergies?’. Let’s keep everybody happy!
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Make cones with craft bag paper, fill them with crisps or pork scratching and hang them on the wall with a bit of twine!
Remember: Don’t try to be a hero! It’s your wedding and you will be very busy so don’t be scared to ask a close friend or family member to help you with this task. Now food is one of the most expensive parts of a wedding and if you manage to get this bit sorted out yourself, you will have probably saved about half of the budget that you had initially planned to spend. Hooray!
5. MAKE UP:
There is no mystery to this: You have done it a thousand times.You probably put make up on everyday to go to work or to go out at night so trust me on this, you can do it!. We recommend you to go for a natural look, don’t spend hours doing yourself up, you don’t need to! Chloe Morello has a great tutorial on how to achieve the Dusty Rose Natural look. It’s worth watching, we pinky promise!
Our DIY bride created her own and her flower girl’s wedding tiara by fixing some rustic red paper flowers to a piece of twine. Adorable!
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In love with the look? Browse some more wedding floral hair ideas that totally kick ass here.
6. DRESS:
There are so many styles you could choose from so you shine on your big day, but you want that one that makes you rock your wedding. You want to stand out and that is fine, it’s your big day after all! The possibilities are endless and you can find some fine elegant dresses to match your wedding at very affordable prices. Ariana chose a white summery maxi dress from Ibizan fashion wedding designer Charo Ruiz. Her dresses exude simplicity and casualness and one of the main reasons you should seriously consider writing her name down is because most of her wedding dresses are wearable on a daily basis after your wedding.
You now have a few tips on how to organise your own handmade wedding. You go girl, you can do it!
Don’t forget to keep two things in mind:
- Remember, if you are going to plan it yourself: keep it simple, don’t overdue it. Having a small wedding will be much easier to organise than a bigger wedding. Don’t think having a small wedding is less meaningful, far from it, it means with less guests, you will have more quality time to spend with them and enjoy their company.
- Cut out on things you don’t really need: This will give you more time to focus on things that are really important to you. Make a list of only the things that are essential to you and concentrate on them.
Are you a DIY bride? Share your ideas and help other brides around the world create their perfect handmade wedding!
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